Mediterranean migration: European leaders are digging in their heels - saving lives in danger right now is still not their priority

24 April 2015

Ikram N'gadi

"A mass grave is being created in the Mediterranean Sea," says Loris De Filippi, president of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Italy.

In response to the EU Emergency Summit statement, MSF expresses its disappointment to see EU leaders persisting in a direction that proved to be not only inefficient but cost thousands of lives.

"We are amazed to see that the huge means and resources allocated to declaring war on smugglers are not equally invested in saving lives", said Aurelie Ponthieu, humanitarian advisor on migration for MSF." This proposal falls short of offering adequate search and rescue means and pursue the same policies that have contributed to the current situation. Focusing on keeping people out by cutting their only existing routes is only going to push people fleeing for their lives to find other routes, potentially even more dangerous. We see no real safe and legal alternatives to boat migration coming out of this meeting. Without these alternatives, declaring war on smugglers is declaring war on the very same people the Member states say their priority is to save."